Obesity remains a serious health problem and it is no secret that many people want to lose weight. Behavioral economists typically argue that “nudges” help individuals with various decisionmaking flaws to live longer, healthier, and better lives. In an article in the new issue of Regulation, Michael L. Marlow discusses how nudging by government differs from nudging by markets, and explains why market nudging is the more promising avenue for helping citizens to lose weight.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

Home Study Course

Module 8: John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) is increasingly
acknowledged as one of the most influential thinkers on
women's rights and also as an incisive and observant
writer on politics, education, and social issues.
Although not consistently libertarian, she was
consistently in favor of equal legal rights for men and
women, and she operated within a generally classical
liberal framework. The audiocassette presents an account
of her life as a radical individualist writer as well as
discussion of her arguments for equality before the law.
In her writings she engaged some of the central issues in
political philosophy, notably the debate over whether it
was preferable to defend historically situated
("prescriptive") rights or universal
("abstract") rights. Burke had defended
prescriptive rights but was highly critical of abstract
statements of rights and therefore was wary about the
application of rights theory to other candidates for
rights (for example, women).

Among Wollstonecrafts more interesting
observations is that the characters of subservient wives
and of subservient soldiers are similar: both are taught
to please and both live only to please. As belief in a
"divine right of kings" perverts the character
of kings, so, Wollstonecraft argued, belief in the
"divine right of husbands" perverts the
character of husbands.

The readings by Wollstonecraft and by the sisters
Sarah and Angelina Grimké in this module focus on the
relationship between rights and responsibilities. One
cannot reasonably expect a person to act responsibly if
one does not accord to that person both the right and the
responsibility of self-governance.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), one of the best known
intellectual figures of the nineteenth century, is
especially revered by civil libertarians (as well as by
Margaret Thatcher) for his essay On Liberty,
published in 1859. Mills principal concern was to
ensure that individual liberty was not swallowed up in
the move toward popular sovereignty. The emergence of the
United States as a democratic republic led him to
conclude, "It was now perceived that such phrases as
self-government, and the power of the
people over themselves, do not express the true
state of the case. The people who exercise
the power are not always the same people with those over
whom it is exercised; and the self-government
spoken of is not the government of each by himself, but
of each by all the rest." Mills account of the
need to protect individual liberty from "the tyranny
of the majority" has been highy influential--notably
his defense of freedom of speech as a process of
determining the truth; being "protected" from
falsehood is the same as being "protected" from
the possibility of knowing truth.

The readings from Mill and from Boaz explore the
meaning of individual liberty and responsibility for
ones own moral development, and the chapters by the
distinguished jurist Bruno Leoni consider different
meanings of freedom and constraint. Leoni parts company
with Mill on the question of whether freedom should be
construed principally as freedom from coercion by the
state or as freedom from "social pressure" as
well. Mill had argued in On Liberty that
"protection . . . against the tyranny of the
magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also
against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and
feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by
other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and
practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from
them." Others, such as Bruno Leoni, have argued that
liberty should not be confused with freedom from public
opinion but should be limited to freedom from coercion,
understood in terms of force or the threat of force.

Milton Friedman, in the excerpt from Capitalism and
Freedom, argues that private property and a
capitalist economy are necessary prerequisites for
individuality, freedom of speech, and Mills
"experiments in living." David Boaz, in the
chapters from his book, considers the dignity and worth
of the individual human being and the possibility of the
coexistence of individuals of different faiths,
philosophies, and cultures in a free and open society.

This module treats the issues of equal rights,
especially with reference to women and to the flourishing
of individuality and pluralism in a free society. The
grounding of the libertarian view in individual rights,
rather than in collective claims, provides important
insights into the contemporary debate on
"multiculturalism."

 What
is the relationship between responsibility for
ones behavior and the right and freedom to
direct that behavior?

 Do equal legal rights for men and women
entail equality in all other respects?

 If an act such as excessive alcohol
drinking is harmful to the person who undertakes
it, or to others in his or her life (such as a
spouse or children), in what sense is the act
"victimless"?

 Is it contrary to individualist
principles for some people (whether a majority or
a minority) to criticize the behavior or choices
of others, if they refrain from resorting to
force or legal coercion?

 Is there a difference between an immoral
act and a criminal act? Are all criminal acts
immoral? Are all immoral acts criminal?

 How can people become virtuous if the
state does not direct them toward virtue?

 Can freedom of speech and the press
exist without private property?

Suggested Additional Reading

Albert Jay Nock, "On Doing the Right Thing,"
in Albert Jay Nock, The State of the Union: Essays in
Social Criticism, Charles H. Hamilton, ed.
(Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), and in Our Enemy
the State, Walter E. Grinder, ed. (1935; San
Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1994). This essay makes the
case for individual liberty and responsibility very
eloquently; both of the editions listed include other
valuable works by Nock, as well as useful introductions
to Nocks thought by the editors.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty. One can still
profit from a close reading of this classic work. One
especially noteworthy feature is the way in which Mill
considers both state coercion and what he calls "the
despotism of culture" enemies of liberty. As Thomas
Babington Macaulay noted, this feature of Mills
argument seems the weakest, although it is often advanced
by modern liberals as the strongest part of Mills
argument.

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of
Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
Wollstonecraft argued vehemently for equality of legal
rights and liabilities, even if she was not always
arguing for a strictly libertarian set of rights. (Her
views on state education and the virtues of the Spartans
were certainly incompatible with a considered classical
liberal view, but her emphasis was on the equal treatment
of men and women by the state.)

Herbert Spencer, Social Statics (1850; New
York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1995). This is a
brilliant and highly influential statement of the ethical
foundations of a free and progressive society. It
includes Spencers criticism of utilitarianism,
which he termed the "expediency philosophy."

For Further Study

Freedom, Feminism, and the State, Wendy
McElroy, ed. (Washington: Cato Institute, 1982). This
collection brings together many of the most influential
writings of the individualist feminist movement and
includes a valuable introductory essay by the editor.

Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action
(1792; Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1993). This book
exercised a powerful influence on John Stuart Mill, as
well as on the general direction of the moral sciences in
the nineteenth century. Humboldt was a brilliant Prussian
liberal who set his ideas out to, as he put it in the
opening words of the book, "discover to what end
State institutions should be directed, and what limits
should be set to their activity." Humboldts
treatment of liberty is less ambiguous than Mills
better known work.

Lysander Spooner, Vices Are Not Crimes (1875),
reprinted in The Lysander Spooner Reader, George
H. Smith, ed. (San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1992).
This essay originally appeared in a volume titled Prohibition:
A Failure, long before the horrible experiences of
what we now know as the "Prohibition Era." This
essay shines the light of reason on the attempts of
government to use coercion to punish vice.